Investigating Crime:  A Spatial Analysis of Criminal Activity in Ottawa, Ontario

This project was produced for a 4th year Geography course in Geographic Information Systems at the University of British Columbia.  Our analyses were performed using data made public by the Ottawa Police Department in Ottawa, Ontario.  

This project was performed using ESRI ArcGIS 9, Geographic Weighted Regression software and CrimeStat 3.0.

Project Goals

Using this software we attempt to explore emergent spatial patterns of criminal activity in Ottawa.  GWR allowed us to investigate socioeconomic variables and their relation to criminal activity, whereas CrimeStat 3.0 provided tools for the statistical analysis of spatial characteristics.  We then displayed and mapped our findings using ArcGIS. The parallel use of these programs provided an opportunity for a unique study of the patterns of various crimes which occurred between January 2005 and March 2006.  We hope to contextualize our findings into contemporary criminological theory.

The Authors